When asked a question about whether he felt protests were hurting the school budget process today at Child Centered Therapeutics in Warren, Christie said no, but singled out Bridgewater-Raritan in an expanded response.

“What I don’t like is teachers politicking in the classroom,” he said. “What I don’t like is teachers’ unions organizing students and showing them videos encouraging protest in chemistry class in Bridgewater when they should be teaching chemistry.”

Christie did not expand on the comment, but his spokesman Michael Drewniak said later that his administration believes Bridgewater-Raritan teachers “encouraged students to protest” after the district was dealt a 55 percent cut in state aid in the governor’s proposed budget.

About 75 students at Bridgewater-Raritan High School skipped class on March 26 to stage a protest of proposed budget cuts to the district.

Steve Beatty, president of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association, called Christie’s statement “an unsubstantiated rumor” and said none of the union’s 1,360 members encouraged students to protest.

“I guess the governor has a lot of time on his hands,” Beatty said. “To put it out there as fact is pretty irresponsible, especially for someone who is a former prosecutor.”

Christie has criticized the union over the last month for not agreeing to a salary freeze to stave off major cuts in the district. Earlier this week the BREA approved $1.4 million in give-backs, but did not alter the 4 percent raise they are guaranteed next year in their contract.

Bridgewater-Raritan Superintendent Michael Schilder said there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the high school teaching staff.

“Right now I have no evidence that any teacher showed an inappropriate video during class time, and as I’ve said before, the student protest was organized and carried out by students alone,” he said. “If anyone has information and evidence to the contrary, he/she is welcome to bring it forward. But in any event, this will be handled internally and not in the media and not with the governor.”